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Re: UP Ranks #1 Worst Company to Work For
Author: G.Poindexter
Date: 10-03-2019 - 16:59
UP was an excellent company to work for until the early 1980's merger with the MoPac.
UP managers were older and comfortable; they spent money to make money.
MoPac managers were younger, aggressive cost-cutters who though UP was way overbuilt,
had too may people, too much PR, worried too much about employee and community relations, etc.
They quickly turfed out the UP and WP guys and brought a dose of Jenks-style, take-no-prisoners cost-cutting. To hell with the employees; just find things to cut. And when you run out of things to cut, cut some more.
They thought the MP-WP-UP merger was handled too slowly, so when they had a chance to do the CNW merger, they tried to make all the changes overnight. Any who were around then saw what happened.
Having learned nothing from that debacle, they proceeded to pull the same stunts at the SP merger. And everyone knows how that turned out. It was the CNW merger mess on steroids and took years to sort out.
Meanwhile, they kept on cutting, right in the face of tremendous traffic growth, when they should have been spending on capacity and getting rid of more system bottlenecks. Tower 55, anyone?
Eventually, they ran out of exUP people to get rid of and the MoPac guys the turned on each other.
Lately, the MoPac guys are going away, too. Mostly by cushy retirements and buyouts.
There are very few people left who know how to run a railroad and those are b uried so deeply in the management structure that they can't do much. Expensive mistakes and short-sighted decisions that had been made years ago are now back in vogue.
What do you expect?
UP managers were older and comfortable; they spent money to make money.
MoPac managers were younger, aggressive cost-cutters who though UP was way overbuilt,
had too may people, too much PR, worried too much about employee and community relations, etc.
They quickly turfed out the UP and WP guys and brought a dose of Jenks-style, take-no-prisoners cost-cutting. To hell with the employees; just find things to cut. And when you run out of things to cut, cut some more.
They thought the MP-WP-UP merger was handled too slowly, so when they had a chance to do the CNW merger, they tried to make all the changes overnight. Any who were around then saw what happened.
Having learned nothing from that debacle, they proceeded to pull the same stunts at the SP merger. And everyone knows how that turned out. It was the CNW merger mess on steroids and took years to sort out.
Meanwhile, they kept on cutting, right in the face of tremendous traffic growth, when they should have been spending on capacity and getting rid of more system bottlenecks. Tower 55, anyone?
Eventually, they ran out of exUP people to get rid of and the MoPac guys the turned on each other.
Lately, the MoPac guys are going away, too. Mostly by cushy retirements and buyouts.
There are very few people left who know how to run a railroad and those are b uried so deeply in the management structure that they can't do much. Expensive mistakes and short-sighted decisions that had been made years ago are now back in vogue.
What do you expect?
